The illegal wildlife trade is a mulit-billion dollar industry and although Australia doesn't have the scale of poaching found in Africa or Asia, some species of birds and reptiles are highly sought after.

'This will make it easy for members of the public to be the eyes and ears on the ground watching out for wildlife trade.'

The app allows people to take a photo and document which animal is suspected of being traded and then register a GPS location.

The information is then sent to the global wildlife monitoring network, TRAFFIC.

This is analysed and if needed sent to local law enforcement agencies.

In Australia the app is being targeted to travellers who might see something overseas which they suspect as being illegal.

Kira Husher says it was an Australian business traveller which lead to the Taronga zoo taking custody of a sun bear, Mr Hobbs, from Cambodia.

'He was on a business trip and reported a sun bear in a cage outside a Cambodian restaurant.

'Mr Hobbs was destined to become bear paw soup,' she said.

John Scanlon supports the mobile phone app and hopes it will lead to greater understanding of the problem.

'There's now one billion people travelling per year and they can unwittingly make poor decisions and buy something and not know it's coming from an endangered species and it's driving it to extinction.

'Part of this is raising awareness of tourists as consumers and also using them as the eyes and ears on the ground, Mr Scanlon said.